In this episode Jeff Schnurr talks to us about Jaza Energy’s mission to deliver sustainable energy and their plan to electrify 600 million people living without electricity in sub Saharan Africa. All while prioritizing female employment, having employed over 150 women to date.We’ve displaced around 450 tons of CO2 emissions just because people are using us as opposed to kerosene to light their home. We have powered over 25,000 people who get their electricity every day from Jaza. The team, in terms of their skills…find really top performing women that become partners with us in this solution and deliver our service has been super inspiring to everyone on the teamJeff Schnurr, Founder, Jaza EnergyTranscript of Interview with Jeff SchnurrJenelle:Hello. Today we have with us Jeff Schnurr. Welcome Jeff.Jeff Schnurr:Hey Jenelle, how are you?Jenelle:Good, thank you. Jeff Schnurr is the CEO and co-founder of Jaza Energy and you can learn more about jazz at energy at Jazaenergy.com. So, Jeff, you are, I mean I’d call you a serial entrepreneur, but you’ve founded previous organizations and companies. But can you tell us a little bit about Jaza Energy as an organization and the products?Jeff Schnurr:Yes, so Jaza is a company that works in sub Saharan Africa currently in Tanzania that builds energy hubs, which are just fancy shops with pans on the roof and we recharge batteries that our customers carry home, plug in and use to power their household. So it’s a solution for people that are currently living without electricity.Jenelle:And you’re currently running that as it’s a for profit model.Jeff Schnurr:Absolutely, yes. So it’s a for profit company and really I think the big why that we’re trying to solve is there’s around 600 million people living without electricity in sub Saharan Africa. They primarily use kerosene for lighting their homes. So, you know, I’m sure that in Canada you don’t really use kerosene for your lighting, but a lot of people around the world do and they spend around like 25% of their household income just on fuel for lights and then they spend a lot more money to pay someone else to charge their mobile phone. So really this is the perfect solution for a social enterprise or a for profit model because we can create a solar energy service that solves that problem and displaces what people were currently spending on kerosene for lighting that they can use to pay for our [inaudible Jenelle:That’s great and you started talking about some of the social impact that Jaza Energy has operating as a for profit company. You mentioned, you know, the percentage of income that’s being spent on product now and how you are decreasing that and obviously moving toward more environmentally friendly solutions for energy resources as well. Can you tell us a little bit about the big social problem that you’re trying to solve at Jaza or maybe there’s more than one.Jeff Schnurr:I think that there’s multiple problems that we can address. I mean, first and foremost, I think that people should have in electricity and in 2020 I think it’s kind of a human human, right. We have the technology, we have the solutions, I think it’s really about the business model and the will to try and solve this problem. People in sub Saharan Africa spend around $14 billion a year on kerosene and fossil fuel for home lighting. And I think that we can just take that spend and allocate it into a renewable energy solution.